The Gay Cockade eBook

They sat very late that night by the fire. I
went in and out, not disturbing them. I saw him
kneel at her feet as he left her, and she bent forward
and kissed his forehead.

He talked of her a great deal after that. More
than I would have talked of love, but his need of
an audience drove him to confidences. He felt
that he must make himself worthy of her—­to
go back to her as anything less than a hero might
seem to belittle her. I am not sure that he was
braver than other men, but his feeling for effect gave
him a sort of reckless courage. Applause was
a part of the game—­he could not do without
it.

And so came that night when a small band of us were
cut off from the rest. We were intrenched behind
a small eminence which hid us from our enemies, with
little hope of long escaping their observation.
It had been wet and cold, and there had been no hot
food for days. We, French and Americans, had
fought long and hard; we were in no state to stand
suspense, yet there was nothing to do but wait for
a move on the other side, a move which could end in
only one way—­bayonets and bare hands, and
I, for one, hated it.

I think the others hated it, too, all but Randolph.
The rain had stopped and the moon flooded the world.
He turned his face up to it and dreamed.

The knowledge came to us before midnight that the
Huns had found us. It became only a matter of
moments before they would be upon us, the thing would
happen which we hated—­bayonets and bare
hands, with the chances in favor of the enemy!

Somewhere among our men rose a whimper of fear, and
then another. You see, they were cold and hungry
and some of them were wounded, and they were cut off
from hope. It wasn’t cowardice. I call
no man a coward. They had faced death a thousand
times, some of them. Yet there was danger in
their fears.

Randolph was next to me. “My God, MacDonald,”
he said, “they’ve lost their nerve—­”

There wasn’t a second to spare. I saw him
doing something to his hat.

As I have said, there was a moon. It lighted
that battle-scarred world with a sort of wild beauty,
and suddenly in a clear space above us on the little
hill a figure showed, motionless against the still
white night—­a figure small yet commanding,
three-cornered hat pulled low—­oh, you have
seen it in pictures a thousand times—­Napoleon
of Marengo, of Austerlitz, of Jena, of Friedland—­but
over and above everything, Napoleon of France!

Of course the Germans shot him. But when they
came over the top they were met by Frenchmen who had
seen a ghost. “C’est l’Empereur!
C’est l’Empereur!” they had gasped.
“He returns to lead us.”

They fought like devils, and—­well, the
rest of us fought, too, and all the time, throughout
the bloody business, I had before me that vision of
Randolph alone in the moonlight. Or was it Randolph?
Who knows? Do great souls find time for such
small business? And was it small?